1. Field
This disclosure generally relates to image processing, and particularly to computationally processing images of a stack of objects.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many businesses need to verify, inventory account or otherwise evaluate for merchandise, currency, tokens or other objects in the course of the operations of the business.
For example, a business may need to verify, inventory or account for merchandise in a warehouse, which may be stacked in one or more stacks. Such merchandise may be in containers, for example boxes, or may not. The merchandise may be associated with a value, for instance a monetary value. A business may need to verify, inventory or account for coins, tokens or chips, each of which may be associated with some value, for instance of monetary value. Such coins, tokens or chips, may be stacked in one or more piles or stacks.
Verification, inventorying or accounting may include determining whether any objects are present, determining a total number of distinct objects in a stack, determining a value of each object that is present and/or determining a cumulative value of the objects. Such is often performed by hand or by eye, with an individual manually counting the objects, visually assessing a value of each object, if any, and mentally assessing a cumulative value of the objects.
Recently, some machine-vision based systems have been proposed to automate the verification, inventorying or accounting functions. Many of the proposed machine-vision based systems have not been commercially successful. The lack of commercial success may be attributable to a variety of factors, for example high computational requirements requiring expensive processors and/or long processing times, inaccuracies, etc. New machine-vision based approaches to verifying, inventorying or accounting for stacks of objects are desirable.